Makes me think about when capitalism was starting up all these buttresses for it started appearing as well. You had state education because factories needed people who can read basic instructions and follow directions. It was basically the most basic level of job training outsourced to the state. Then you had the criminal justice system. The state needed a place to put the people who wouldn't go along with the system, a way of punishing dissidents and enforcing capitalist values via physical force. You also had all this theory of human behavior pop up around justifying why capitalism was correct and why people who didn't want to participate were dysfunctional. The earliest form of psychology was formed and it fucking sucked. Some people do have medical problems with their brain and mental state. However it also swept up a lot of people who just didn't fit into the values of capitalism. It diagnosed them with problems and locked them away in asylums. It became so commonplace that the science actually formalized and started to diverge somewhat from fulling that function for capitalism. More of a triage discipline to handle the effects of capitalism.
The point is that they still do it. People aren't too fat for the military. They're not too mentally ill. They just don't want to serve a terrible institution that does terrible things in the name of propping up American business. However they need a justification for why they're not getting numbers so they turn to diagnosing everyone as unfit. They're not unfit. The institution is unfit.
The state needed a place to put the people who wouldn’t go along with the system, a way of punishing dissidents and enforcing capitalist values via physical force.
Me vaguely remembering all the history podcasts talking about the "vagrancy" laws in the USA. "Not at work during the day? Well then, off to jail to work in a chain gang."
33% disqualify for one reason alone but 44% disqualify for multiple lmao
Hey guys maybe that pandemic wasn't good for all of us out here or something. I can't imagine being in high school or a really young adult and dealing with that shit.
It started when I was 27 and I'm 30 now. Stole the last of my 20's from me and came out of that shit in some of the worst physical and mental health of my life.
And that's with the coping skills I learned from life experience in my earlier youth, imagine all that getting ripped away and everyone's just telling you "alright kid get a move on make some money" now.
Jesus fucking Christ this country
This is probably why Tik Tok has been very "normal" since 2020. Not to say the kids are so bad, they seem to be doing surprisingly ok considering.
To compare, before WW1 the US rejected 83% of all applicants for medical/psych issues, and during WW1 rejected almost half.
That doesn't mean that the current US army doesn't have a problem though, since before WW1 the Army was basically a volunteer cadre force with a secondary (some might say primary) function as a colonial supression force in the Western States. For that kind of army you want high quality recruits, preferably ones from the labour aristocracy looking for a leg up the ladder or marginalised members of the upper class.
The current army is supposed to be a hegemonic force, like the British or Roman Colonial troops, and for that you need a strong core but also a bunch of cannon fodder to soak up the revolts in the periphery. Odd that the USA doesn't have that and instead relies on naval and air force projection, along with unequal treaties.
On the other hand you could say the Imperial Core client states are the Limitani/Colonial troops, but they don't look like the typical model.
Mercs are great for killing and blowing stuff up not so great when it comes to the day to day occupying stuff.
The standards are entirely made up and can be changed in an instant both officially and unofficially. Unless you've got something like diabetes, gang tattoos, or drugs in your pee they will find a way to jam you through.
A high school classmate of mine got a fucking 7 on the percentile scored entrance test. Bottom 7% of the already stupid mfs who take that test. It's basically the SAT but like 7th-8th grade stuff. 31 is the minimum for the jobs with the lowest requirement.
He finished his enlistment last year.
I saw them get an overweight cadet to lose 20+ pounds in 3 weeks and cut like 7 minutes off his 2 mile run time. Theyre very good at getting people into shape (not so great at keeping them there tho)
The recruiters also bash it into your head that when you go to the medical exam that you need tolie and lie about everything. I didn't even have to, my pulse was too low but the doctor just recorded the minimum and said don't worry.
I think they're struggling so much now because gen z is just hopeless for their future and many realized college isn't worth either loads of student debt or serving the imperialist war machine.
I know I guy who joined the air force despite his drug use, mostly weed and LSD, but also other stuff. He admitted it to the recruiter, who told him to just keep it under wraps and not smoke weed for a bit before he got his urine tested and he wouldn't mention it lmao
Yeah, in times of need they just lower their standards. There are always more men (and they are overwhelmingly men) available.
During Vietnam there was a shortage of men, too. Defense secretary McNamara had the brilliant idea of allowing hillbillies, rednecks, and other low-IQ men into the army. They were called "McNamara's Morons" and were totally unsuitable. They couldn't do the jobs to which they were assigned and got a lot of Americans killed. They got themselves killed at high rates, too. But hey, the war machine got the bodies it needed, so the program worked. All praise to the genius who came up with the idea. Afterwards the US military refused to accept anyone with an IQ of 84 or below.
They can always lower the standards if need be, like they did during the Iraq War.
I may not be young anymore but I am fat, mentally ill, and on drugs so :im-doing-my-part:
:im-doing-my-part: I chose drugs because it's the quickest thing to discard when the zone gets cool:think-about-it:
wait I'm sorry. I'm kinda thick today. Is the joke that drugs become more available or less available as the coolness factor gets turned up?
Most of the things listed that preclude one from the military are chronic conditions for which there's no quick fix, something that would be a hindrance in times of instability. But it's relatively much easier to quickly stop being high than it is to quickly lose a lot of weight, making it the tactical coolzone choice out of this list of chronic conditions you mostly don't actually choose.
I guess the joke is that I'm metagaming instead of just having a problem
relatively much easier to quickly stop being high than it is to quickly lose a lot of weight
Not in my experience. A few week-long rolling fasts are no problem compared to months of withdrawal and a lifetime of constantly tamping down cravings.
Damb, maybe an over-reliance on cheap, overly processed food that it bad for you isn't the best idea.
25% are also too stupid/failed by the education system to pass the test
